The Coalition has announced it's moving to Unreal Engine 5, the latest version of the popular multiplatform game engine, for future projects, but says to expect the team to lie low for a while. The team behind the Gears franchise, including most recently Gears 5, announced the plans to adopt the newest version of the Unreal engine, which helped make the franchise famous when it debuted alongside the Xbox 360.
Thank you to all the fans out there who have been on this journey with us. During a worldwide pandemic and working from home, the team launched a first strategy title, Gears Tactics; re-launched Gears 5 and Tactics on Xbox Series X|S hardware with performance upgrades and features; revamped Gears 5 multiplayer with a ton of content and updates; and capped the year with the first mainline campaign expansion – Gears 5: Hivebusters – in almost a decade.
As we look to future games, we’re excited to start shifting our resources to next-gen development using Unreal Engine 5. Gears of War has always been at the front of Unreal Engine development – as a breakout 720p title for Xbox 360 through last year’s 120FPS multiplayer update for Xbox Series X|S – and we’re excited to continue that tradition by developing on UE5 for multiple new projects in the coming years.
In a subsequent paragraph, The Coalition clarifed what this transition means for the future of the studio, as well as implicitly the future of the Gears franchise.
Gears 5 has content on the way, and we’ll continue to release new operations through Operations 7 and 8. Each Operation will have two drops including new characters, new maps, and special events. Through the end of the year, we will have store updates with exciting new content as well as featured playlists.
Shifting to a new engine is a big undertaking, so we want to be clear that we will not be announcing any new projects or titles for some time.
While The Coaltion buries its head for what is likely to be a few years at least, Xbox Game Studios is rumored to have a four-pronged showcase at E3, including the already revealed Age of Empires 4, Halo Infinite, and Starfield, as well as the worst-kept-secret Forza Horizon 5, which will take the series to Mexico this fall.
